My Dad’s a Goldfish -The X factor

I enjoy a good drama series (as long as it isn’t too gory as I’m a bit of a wuss in the gore department) and I’m hooked on Holby City but other than that and the news I don’t bother  much with television. When I was caring for the Goldfish, though, I watched an awful lot of television.

The Goldfish was a keen golfer before a combination of dementia and decreasing mobility made him stop – though he never admitted he didn’t play any longer. It was just that the weather was too cold, or too wet or some other contrived excuse for not being on the golf course. However, he enjoyed watching it on television. I’m not a golfer. The DH plays golf – a lot – and he and the Goldfish played together occasionally and then had a post mortem of the entire 18 holes when they came home. Yawn!

The Goldfish loved golf – after he retired he played almost every day.

I have to say it for non-golfers, following golf on the telly is akin to watching paint dry. Mostly, what the Goldfish watched was on satellite and I’m sure we saw the same tournaments over and over again. I learned more about golf than I ever wanted to know but if the Goldfish was happy, I was happy. A rather lovely documentary about the late Seve Ballesteros was shown several times and each time, the Goldfish would tell me about when he followed him at some match or other. He didn’t realise Seve had died and after the first couple of time, I stopped telling him.

At least the Goldfish was always aware that he was watching golf on television. Once, when he still had some mobility, we were watching football (soccer). He got up and shuffled off. “Are you going to the loo?” I asked.

“No, I’m looking for the football. We’re playing.” Maybe even for an ardent golfer, football is more exciting?

As the Goldfish moved into the later stages of dementia, he understood less and less of what was on television. He’d never been a fan of soaps and he gave watching anything with a storyline as he could no longer process it, nor could he follow documentaries; even golf didn’t hold his attention for long. He did enjoy music and seemed to take real pleasure in watching the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, beating time on the arm of his chair as the marching bands strutted their stuff.

Astonishingly, he was totally entranced by the X Factor – at least I think it was the X Factor. The talent show where the contestants who have come through the first rounds are packed off to boot camp and then whittled down again. We hadn’t watched any of the first rounds so I didn’t have much of a clue about what was happening, never mind the Goldfish – or so I thought.

He was totally caught up in the drama of the eliminations and the progress to the next round. He seemed to enjoy hearing the music. He laughed out loud when successful band members were jumping up and down in excitement, as delighted for them as they were themselves. He sounded so gleeful it made me well up. He was teary-eyed on behalf of those who were sent home.

I’ve always said we were lucky the Goldfish retained his sense of humour right to the end. That evening, I realised how much more of him – his emotional responses, his empathy for others, and the core essence of him – remained intact.

• Dementia
• memories